Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Preview of the Break Beats CD

I put up a preview of the upcoming break beats CD on Soundcloud™ today for anybody that wants to check it out. The CD's will be $8.95 each and the digital download will be $12.95 (with additional exclusive content for your mixes). I will be signing the first 10 CD's purchased as a bonus as well... So get your order in on launch and you could also receive other free gifts along with your order.

Monday, February 17, 2014

Attitude is Everything

I have to put this out there. There is too much negativity in EVERYTHING. People have forgotten how to love, how to live and how to grow (this is the worst thing ever). I see way too many people out there that are all about themselves. They don't want to get better or be better people. All they care about is what they can get and who they can take advantage of. I don't get it, and I certainly don't understand it. When did the people here get so lazy. Instead of thinking what can I do to help myself and others they take the stance of lets see what the hard people get and see if we can get a piece of that (but they don't wanna work for it). They just want it handed to them. It's a hustle...


This right here has gotta stop. Do something nice for somebody for a change! Do something to grow yourself. Stop relying on others for everything. Realize that your time here is limited and make the best of it!

And the next time I see somebody in the service industry with a bad attitude I'm gonna call them out! They are the exact people that need to realize that they touch other peoples lives through their jobs!



Sunday, February 16, 2014

Mobile vs. Club DJ's - Why the animosity?

So I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who is a club DJ. He was giving me all sorts of shit about the price we charge for mobile DJ work. Then I reminded him of a few things. First off we have to bring the club to basically wherever the client want's us. We don't have the luxury of just showing up and playing music. We actually have to pay insurance to protect our equipment, insurance for the transport vehicle (A commercial policy at that) and it's not cheap, upkeep on equipment that constantly gets bumped around because of all the movement in transport, music, etc, etc. I reminded him that we may book this out at $250 an hour whereas he may be getting that for an entire evening if he is lucky but there are a few differences in the two types of gigs. Let's take a look...

Packing, Transport, Setup, Play, Tear Down, Transport, Unpacking...

I just outlined what we do as mobile DJ's. Some of us don't have to pack and unpack their rigs but sometimes this can add substantial time to what we do. If I play an 8PM-11PM show that's 3 hours of play time. If I charge $750 for this as an example we can now look into the typical time and preparation required to do a mobile show.

Let's assume it's an hour to the event and back. So if I have a show at 8PM the absolute latest I can arrive is 6PM. My setup time is an hour but I also build in time in the event that a piece of equipment may have a problem and need replaced so I allow myself extra time, plus you never know what you may run into during the setup. So if I leave at 5PM and play the gig I finish up around 11PM. I can usually tear the show down in about an hour and get it packed and I would probably be back by 1AM. So lets look at the number of hours involved. We are looking at around 8 hours for the show. So if I break it down that's $93.75 per hour. Now lets look a the other things required to pull off the show successfully. First we need music. My monthly music subscription is $120 per month. So if I break this down and charge it back to the client based on 8 gigs a month that's $15 out of my pocket. My insurance for the vehicle and equipment is $250 per month so broken down that's $31.25 in expenses. And then throw in about $10 for gas as well as $20 for food and misc expenses and you can see quickly that the hourly rate is much lower than where we started.

So we are right around $84 per hour. If I have any help to setup (which you always have) then you are farther cutting into your profits. So say I pay somebody $20 an hour to help me setup and tear down and transport now we are at $64 per hour. 

Guess what club DJ. After I pay my taxes your making more hourly than I am.

Maximizing Profits in Mobile Entertainment

So as you can see there is not much money in the mobile DJ business. The only way to succeed in this space is to add value added services such as monograms, special effects and other types of entertainment. The key to profits is to combine services and don't lock yourself into a particular box when designing your mobile entertainment offerings.

Just wanted to put this out there. There is not much money in mobile DJ work. It's work to make money folks!  

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Montel Jordan on the Move Lately...

I just realized today while pulling down updates from the record companies that Montell Jordan is starting to show up all over the place. 2 weeks ago he was in Vegas for the MBLV18 show and now this week the record companies are pushing his older stuff that was just released in remixed formats.



It appears Montell may be setting up for a come back here soon. Stay tuned I'm sure there's more to his uptick in public appearances and it wouldn't surprise me if we didn't see some new heat from a classic.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

MBLV18 Convention Info

Over the course of the next 2 days this blog will be alive complete with Video and photos from MBLV18 in Las Vegas. I will be visiting the exhibits on Tuesday morning. Tomorrow night I will be spinning. Weds I will write up a complete overview of the convention and thoughts and sort of an after action review.

If you have anything specific you would like me to check out such as the completely awesome Pioneer DDJ-SZ (which will be used in the first public performance ever on Monday night) please let me know. I'll try and cover as many topics as possible.

Until tomorrow... Sleep tight!